Joint Chamber swears to support crime fight

ON the heels of a historical milestone in the murder toll, the Joint Chamber has made a desperate call for a solution to crime and criminality in Trinidad and Tobago.

It has sworn to play whatever role it can to help address the crime situation.

As of Thursday night, TT recorded 599 murders.

On Thursday, in a media release, the Joint Chambers, which includes AMCHAM TT, the Energy Chamber of TT, the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and the TT Manufacturers’ Association, said tackling crime must be the number one priority.

This has to be an inter-agency, community-focused, inter-religious approach.

“As 2022 draws to a close, with a record number of murders, every single citizen is feeling the effects of the crime crisis and many of us are living in fear even within our own homes.

“Dealing with a crime will involve all of society and concerted action from many institutions and individuals, from Parliament to the Cabinet, to the National Security Council, to the Police Service, to the Customs Division, to the Coast Guard, to the Judiciary, to religious leaders, to NGOs and right through to the choices made by private businesses and individual citizens.”

The chambers have, in the past, lobbied for changes to legislation to improve TTPS detection rate with hopes that it would assist the judiciary’s conviction rate.

It has also supported a large variety of NGOs putting in place social and youth development programmes and has introduced programme of its own to strengthen corporate governance and address corruption and other white-collar crimes that fuel violent crime.

But this wasn’t enough to dampen this year’s murder crisis.

“Given the current crisis, it is imperative that we all redouble our efforts to fight crime from all angles. As we enter a new year, we will be intensifying our efforts and we will be reaching out to all stakeholders to find ways that we can constructively help bring the crime situation under control.

"The Joint Chambers commits to working with all stakeholders to tackle the crime situation head-on in 2023."